SNAPPshot: Monday September 11, 2017

(SNAPPshot is a daily blog-like news piece about the mobile gaming industry. A “snapshot” of the past 24 hours if you will. It’s basically an excuse for Noen to ramble on about anything and everything that has to do with nothing.)

Gooooood flipping morning/afternoon/evening SNAPP Family!!!! Time for me to pour a cup of coffee and see what the hell has been going on the past couple of days!

Well, first off, HAPPY MONDAY! Welcome to the start of your week! It’s September 11th, so it’s usually a weird kind of day in the U.S. I won’t get into “that” though. It’s just weird whenever saying or typing 9/11. The world is a crazy place!

There wasn’t a whole lot of news over the weekend. There was a lot of speculation though!! As you all know, the Apple Keynote is tomorrow and everyone is speculating what will be announced. Most likely it will be the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Another big one is the rumored iPhone X. This is the supposedly “10th Anniversary” iPhone. The biggest thing coming out of all of this is the price though! It’s even hitting the mainstream news. “Insiders” say that the iPhone 8 could cost as much as $1000. Most iPhones right now cost around that much anyway. I’m telling ya. It’s getting WAY too expensive regardless! I mean, a thousand dollars for a new phone every couple years?? It’s crazy! I bought my last laptop for like $600 a year and a half ago and have no reason to upgrade that! My iPad 2 lasted me all the way until the iPad Air 2 released. Hell, my original iPad and iPad 2 are still alive and kicking with the kids using them daily. Luckily, I’m due for an upgrade with my carrier, so I’ll be able to get one of the new iPhones. We’ll see which one.

HTC is apparently in the final stages of negotiations to sell its smartphone business to none other than……..Google! It sounds like Google is either looking to be a partner or buy the company as a whole. It’s been pretty secretive so far. HTC hasn’t been doing very well lately, so maybe this is a good thing?? Yea, I feel the same way.

With the whole text-based interactive story games gaining popularity, developer/publisher, Jam City decided to jump on the bandwagon over the weekend soft launching its new game, Twist. What’s unique about this one is that it’s several choose-your-own-adventure games in one app with the app being updated regularly. Kind of like an interactive library of these type of games. It looks like Jam City will be using a subscription service with $2.99 a week, up to $39.99 a year. Yup.

We had a couple updates over the weekend…….

Wheelie Racing received a pretty good update with three new bikes and a whole new level. I’m still playing this one off and on, but it’s definitely a grindfest!